Updated NEWS and README for 2.8 branch

NEWS.txt

@@ -1,35 +1,40 @@
 OSG News
 ========
 
-= !OpenSceneGraph 2.8 release adds osgAnimation and osgVolume rendering libraries, DICOM support and much more. =
+= !OpenSceneGraph 2.8 release adds osgAnimation and osgVolume libraries, DICOM support, LispSM shadowing and much more. =
 
-PERTHSHIRE, Scotland - Early February 2009 - !OpenSceneGraph Professional Services announces the release of !OpenSceneGraph 2.8, the industry's leading open-source scene graph technology, designed to accelerate application development and improve 3D graphics performance. !OpenSceneGraph 2.8 written entirely in Standard C++ and built upon OpenGL, offers developers working in the visual simulation, game development, virtual reality, scientific visualization and modeling markets - a real-time visualization tool which eclipses commercial scene graph toolkits in functionality, stability and performance. !OpenSceneGraph 2.8 runs on all Microsoft Windows platforms, Apple OS/X, GNU/Linux, IRIX, Solaris, HP-UX, AIX and FreeBSD operating systems.
+PERTHSHIRE, Scotland - 4th February 2009 - !OpenSceneGraph Professional Services announces the release of !OpenSceneGraph 2.8, the industry's leading open-source scene graph technology, designed to accelerate application development and improve 3D graphics performance. !OpenSceneGraph 2.8 written entirely in Standard C++ and built upon OpenGL, offers developers working in the visual simulation, game development, virtual reality, scientific visualization and modeling markets - a real-time visualization tool which eclipses commercial scene graph toolkits in functionality, stability and performance. !OpenSceneGraph 2.8 runs on all Microsoft Windows platforms, Apple OS/X, GNU/Linux, IRIX, Solaris, HP-UX, AIX and FreeBSD operating systems.
 
 === Open-source development delivers industry-leading features and performance ===
-The !OpenSceneGraph 2.8 release is the culmination of 9 years of work by the lead developers and the open-source community that has grown up around the project. The real-time graphics industry and academia embraced it from the very beginning, deploying it in real-world applications, and actively participating in its development, testing and refinement. The end result is a high-quality library with a feature set relevant to application developers' needs. 
+The !OpenSceneGraph 2.8 release is the culmination of 10 years of work by the lead developers and the open-source community that has grown up around the project. The real-time graphics industry and academia embraced it from the very beginning, deploying it in real-world applications, and actively participating in its development, testing and refinement. The end result is a high-quality library with a feature set relevant to application developers' needs. 
 
 === Updates include: ===
 
-    * New osgVolume library for volume rendering, with support for:
+  * New osgVolume library for volume rendering, with support for:
-      - High quality GPU based Ray tracing
+    * High quality GPU based Ray tracing
-      - Transfer functions
+    * Transfer functions
-      - Per pixel lighting
+    * Per pixel lighting
-      - Iso surface rendering
+    * Iso surface rendering
-      - Maximum Intensity rendering
+    * Maximum Intensity rendering
-      - non power of two 3d texture and 3d texture compression
+    * non power of two 3d texture and 3d texture compression
-      - DICOM loader for reading dicom medical data
+    * DICOM loader for reading dicom medical data
-    * New osgAnimation library for character and scene animation.
+  * New osgAnimation library for character and scene animation.
-    * New PDF widget support (based on libPoppler)
+  * New plugin for reading Biovision hierarchical files (.BVH) to generate character motion animations.
-    * New VNC client widget support (based on libVNCServer) 
+  * New osgShadow support for Light Space Perspective Shadow Maps (LispSM).
-    * New Browser client widget support (based on Gecko/UBrowser)
+  * Three new scene graph widgets for placing traditional 2D capability into fully interactive 3D scenes:
-    * New plugins for loading Half-Life 2 maps and models.
+    * PDF widget support (based on libPoppler)
-    * Improvements to DatabasePager tailored for low latency paging.
+    * VNC client widget support (based on libVNCServer) 
-    * Improved stats collection and on screen reporting.
+    * Internet browser client widget support (based on Gecko/UBrowser)
-    * Support for the OpenGL draw instanced extension.
+  * New plugins for loading Half-Life 2 maps and models.
-    * Improvements to COLLADA support.
+  * New plugin for loaded exr, high dynamic range imagery
-    * Build reporting using CDash
+  * Improvements to DatabasePager tailored for low latency paging.
-    * New Packing support using CPack
+  * Improved runtime stats collection and on screen reporting.
-    * A wide range of build and bug fixes 
+  * Performance improvements through optimization of matrix operations.
+  * Support for the OpenGL draw instanced extension.
+  * Improvements to COLLADA support.
+  * Build reporting using CDash
+  * New packing support using CPack
+  * A wide range of build and bug fixes 
 
 === Downloads and Licensing ===
 !OpenSceneGraph is open-source so full source code is provided, and can be copied, modified and used free of charge for commercial and non-commercial use. Access to the source allows end users greater flexibility in how they develop, debug and deploy their applications.  They gain productivity and freedom by being able to leverage the tool chain in accordance with their own release cycles. Downloads of binaries and source can be found in the [http://www.openscenegraph.org/projects/osg/wiki/Downloads Downloads] section of the openscenegraph.org website.

README.txt

@@ -15,7 +15,7 @@ subscribe to our public mailing list:
 
 Robert Osfield.
 Project Lead.
-12th December 2008.
+4th Februaru 2009.
 
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